Thursday, April 27, 2017

Engineering Idiocy

So an electronics guy in Oregon showed evidence he says proves red light cameras don't always work right. On some right turns, it will show people doing something illegal even though they actually don't. He showed his research at a national traffic policy conference. Then he took it to the Oregon Board of Examiners for Engineering, who immediately set out to correct the flaws in the camera system.

Just kidding! They fined him because they said he called himself an engineer when he wasn't one, and if he wasn't one then what he did wasn't engineering. So there was absolutely no problem whatsoever with the cameras, because all of the people who paid money so they can call themselves engineers in the state of Oregon said so. Or at least the board that handed out the licenses they paid for did, anyway. They contend that the state of Oregon has control over who gets to use the word "engineer" to describe themselves.

Just in case you thought California had a monopoly on stupid state government actions with a Pacific exposure.